6 September 2008

Video downloading, conversion & embedding in Powerpoint

This is a techie post, not specifically fundraising, but could be used by fundraisers and others needing to download videos for use in Powerpoint presentations. I thought it was going to be difficult and costly, but it turns out to be a doddle and cost nowt!

Firstly, you need to be personally converted from the clutches of Internet Explorer to the glory that is Firefox 3.0. If you haven’t changed yet, shame on you, you don’t know what you’re missing!

Restart Firefox when prompted. It will put an icon on your Firefox toolbar to the right of the http:// address bar.

Media Convertor icon

Now go to You Tube or wherever your video is. Click on the video you want to play/download. When it starts playing the new icon will turn blue (if it is a video it can download and convert) or stay grey coloured if it is not.

Click on the icon and you will get a pop-up window showing step 1 of 4. Follow these in turn. I set my default to turn the videos into MPG format. I did not play with the defaults options at the second stage.

When you see a “download” picture, click on it to tell it where to download the videos to. I set up a folder in “My Videos” for downloaded ones, so I know where they are.

Open Powerpoint.

On the slide you want the video to display, go to Insert > Movies &n Sound > Movies from file. Browse for your video and “Hey Presto” there it is! You can click on the corners to enlarge the size of the video (although you will lose a bit of definitation)

Save the file, then simply click on the video to start it (you have an option for it to start on the opening of the slide if you wish).

Got something interesting to share about fundraising?

If you’ve come across something you think would be of interest to others in the not-for-profit, charity world, please feel free to submit it to me. If it’s relevant, I’ll post it on the blog (and credit it to you).
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